The Tragedy of Arthur

The Tragedy of Arthur

Arthur Phillips’s The Tragedy of Arthur is a topsy-turvy postmodern
version of poor William Henry Ireland’s story, complete with a
slightly different relationship between a Shakespeare-loving father
and his son, and a fake early Shakespearean history play called The
Most Excellent and Tragical Historie of Arthur, King of Britain,
which is reproduced, with scholarly notes, at the end of the book. It
begins, though, as a fairly orthodox novel about a man called Arthur
Phillips and his twin sister, Dana. The presence of boy/girl twins
warns us to watch for traces of Twelfth Night, and the fact that
their mother is called Mary Arden makes it slightly surprising that
they live in Minneapolis rather than, say, Stratford, Ontario. Their
father (also called Arthur), who describes himself as ‘gently used.
Slightly foxed. Warmly inscribed’, keeps ending up in jail for a
variety of scams.